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Change of meeting room

Hi Grace,

Just a quick message about tomorrow. Our meeting with the new clients is still at 10 o'clock, but it isn't in Room 4 now. The cleaners are painting it this week, so we are going to use the small room on the second floor, next to the kitchen.

Please bring twelve copies of the price list, not ten, because two more people from their office are coming. I'm going to arrive a little late because I have to take my son to school, so can you welcome them and offer them some tea?

Thanks,

Moussa

Digital skills evenings at the Hamdallaye Community Centre

From 4 November, the Hamdallaye Community Centre will run a series of evening workshops for adults who want to feel more confident with computers. The sessions take place every Tuesday and Thursday from 6 pm to 8 pm and last for six weeks. In the first three weeks, participants will learn how to write and format documents, create simple spreadsheets and organise their files. The second half of the programme focuses on online tools: sending professional emails, joining video calls and protecting personal information on the internet.

No previous experience is necessary, but participants should be able to read and write in English or French, as the instructors will use both languages. Groups are limited to fifteen people so that everyone gets individual attention, and each participant will have a computer during the sessions. Bringing your own laptop is not required, although it can help you practise at home.

The programme costs 25,000 CFA francs. However, students and job seekers pay half price if they show a valid card when they register. Places are given in order of registration, and last year every group was full within a week.

Mobile payments at Treichville market: results of a six-month pilot

Last March, a group of 120 traders at Treichville market in Abidjan agreed to take part in a six-month pilot designed to encourage customers to pay by mobile phone rather than in cash. Each trader received a printed QR code and a short training session, and customers who paid by phone were offered a small discount.

The results were mixed. By the end of the pilot, around 40 per cent of transactions among participating traders were made by phone, compared with less than 10 per cent at the start. Traders who sold more expensive goods, such as fabric and electronics, adopted the system far more quickly than those selling fruit and vegetables, for whom many purchases were too small to justify the transfer fee.

Several traders reported unexpected benefits. Because they were carrying less cash, they felt safer when travelling home in the evening, and some found it easier to keep track of their income, which helped them when applying for small loans. On the other hand, a significant number complained that network problems at busy times caused queues and lost sales. A few also said that older customers remained reluctant to use the system, preferring the reassurance of notes and coins.

The organisers now plan to extend the scheme to two more markets. However, they acknowledge that the discount was the main reason many customers tried mobile payment in the first place, and it is not yet clear whether this behaviour will last once the discount is withdrawn. A follow-up study is expected next year.

The hidden cost of being always available

Few managers would admit to judging their staff by how quickly they answer emails, yet in many organisations this is precisely what happens. The employee who replies within minutes, even late at night, is quietly rewarded with a reputation for commitment, while a colleague who takes an afternoon to respond is assumed to be less engaged. It is a culture that few people chose, but almost everyone now sustains.

The case in its favour is not entirely without merit. In sectors where clients expect immediate answers, responsiveness can win contracts, and a team that communicates constantly may spot problems before they escalate. To dismiss these advantages as mere illusion would be naive.

What this argument overlooks, however, is the price paid elsewhere. Work that genuinely moves an organisation forward (drafting a strategy, analysing a complex budget, writing a proposal that stands out) requires long stretches of uninterrupted attention. Every notification, however brief, fragments that attention, and research on task-switching suggests that recovering full concentration can take considerably longer than the interruption itself. The result is a workforce that is permanently busy and only occasionally productive.

Nor is the cost evenly shared. Those who set the pace of communication are usually senior staff, whose own schedules are protected by assistants and closed doors. It is junior employees, anxious to prove themselves, who feel least able to switch off.

None of this means that organisations should ban evening emails or impose rigid rules, which tend to be resented and quietly ignored. A more modest step would be for leaders to state explicitly what response times they actually expect, and then to demonstrate it themselves. Until they do, the unspoken rule will continue to win, and the most valuable work will continue to be done, if at all, in the margins of the day.